In-laws incensed by marriage mutilate husband in Pakistan

MULTAN, PAKISTAN — Outraged in-laws slashed the nose and ears of a Pakistani college student who married a woman without the consent of her higher-caste family, and then fractured his legs with an ax, police and the victim said.

Mohammed Iqbal said from his hospital bed Wednesday that about 30 male relatives of his wife stormed into his mother's home during the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha, demanding vengeance.

"You have mixed our honor with dirt," Iqbal, 22, recounted the attackers chanting as they assaulted him with a dagger and ax Monday night. They also slit his brother's ears and shot his mother in the thigh, he said.

Police officer Manzoor Ahmed in the city of Multan, where the three victims were recuperating, said seven men suspected in the attack in Inayatpur Mahota village were arrested and that police were hunting for 22 other suspects.

Iqbal's wife, Shahnaz Bibi, 19, was not home at the time of the attack. She has been living in another town after a similar assault against Iqbal two months ago at the end of the holy month of Ramadan in which he suffered broken fingers.

Iqbal said he and Bibi did nothing wrong when they wed last year.

"We like each other. Islam gives us permission to marry out of our own choice," he said.